Clothing with guest Courtney Carver. Ep 24

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing position and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura and this is episode twenty four. Today we're going to be talking about our wardrobes. Our guest Courtney Carver, is going to help us with figuring out the concepts of minimalism and a capsule wardrobes who we're really looking forward to that, But first our own wardrobes. Sarah, where do you shop? Where are you shopping these days? Well? I haven't gone shopping for a while for anything fun, because maternity clothes are not quite the same as regular shopping. But when I am not pregnant, we're recovering from pregnancy. My favorites are probably made well in anthropology, and then I mix in things from Nordstrom a lot of times through the trunk Club service, which I know you've used as well. Yeah, and you said Boden Is that the other one that you Oh, yes, Boden is. I love their so a. Boden is a company that's based in the UK, and they tend to be I guess a little fancier, but at the same time very simple pieces and a lot of them are very work appropriate, Like I have a couple of shift dresses from there, a couple of wrap dresses, and some nicer tops that are really good for work. They're also one of my favorite kid retailers. When I'm looking for children's clothing that I want to last a long time, and now that I have two girls, if I have something that I can rationalize, oh well they could both use it, I go to Boden because they are definitely pricier than they like. Yeah, they're not crazy otherworldly designer pricey. I would just say maybe like twenty five to fifty percent more than an equivalent item would cost it say Gap or maybe two times Target. But they definitely last twice as long and their kid designing is just on point to me. It's beautiful. What about you. Well, since I have boys, they've always been slightly lessened the fashion I guess, so the kids, it's all been Target and Old Navy and then hand me downs from older cousins for instance. Then they've started to get a little bit more into it. My eight year old is a wee bit of a more of a fashion conjert. He actually asked for and got at one point a leather jacket that he loves to wear during the fall and spring seasons. And he has these like dark skinny jeans he wears. It's just hilarious. Oh that's no, we're the I mean the older My oldest son would have worn sweatpants forever. I finally made him stop because I'm just like, you're ten years old. The other children are wearing jeans. Like I mean, I don't really care what you wear, but just in the interest of that you are expressing interest in how other people interact with you. You could look at what other people are wearing and try to match it. I hate having that conversation, but you know, it's it's inevitable. I guess I feel like, well, with my older who's almost six, now, there's this sort of narrow intersection of what I think is cute and what she thinks is cute, and maybe I will get to that point. I know a lot of parents of older children do where you no longer care if you like your kids clothes. But I'm definitely not there yet. So if she wants some hideous like emoji covered shirt, I will gently try to at least steer her to something else. And I've found that companies like Bowden and t have these like nice child friendly prints that are also really inoffensive from my perspective, So that's kind of another part of my game. I will say I buy my kids clothes based on what I want to see them in to some extent, not based on their preferences. Yet that may be more a function of age than anything else. And I will say boys clothes is so much less fun. And I buy a lot of Cameron stuff a Gap because I have a Gap credit card, and I get insane amounts of credits, and then when I combine that with their discounts, I can often get something like four pairs of pants, two shirts, and a bathing suit for nine dollars. Maybe I should look at you if you use the credit card and This is not an ad guys, by the way, just nothing sponsor here and nothing sponsored if you use the card for groceries, I believe it's like three times points, so I figure that out. So that's the card we use all the time for grocery shopping. So I don't it seems like I'm definitely on the winning end of whatever dealers. So does your daughter like this? There's these teeny boppers shops like was it justice? She doesn't know, but so we have older female cousins who have passed down stuff to my daughter, so it's just the hilarious. I mean, a shirt that'll be like t unicorn or something, and it's like, you know, I guess she's more into like fuzzy pants. Still at this point she likes to wear leggings that are fuzzy when they just get those at Target. And then if the shirt has sequence on it, it's like a major win. Which for the most part, they can still be laundered, and given that they cost like ten dollars, it's okay even if they fall apart after a couple of couple of washes, but well then then you at least don't have to keep looking at it. For you very cute. It's like, oh JM, yeah, that one fell apart. So I mean for me, I do a lot of Nordstrom trunk stuff. I like straight like jeans. I'll talk more about that later, I guess. But let's reminder some people may not know what nordstrum. It has a service that's called Trunk Club, which basically their stylist will send you stuff that is your size and what they know of your preference, and then you, you know, keep what you want, send it back and it's not like a monthly thing or whatever. You sort of elect whenever you want to get it. My my stats will like proactively put stuff together. I guess when they get their new shipments in or whenever she needs to make her numbers or whatever it is that that drives that process. But uh, you know, I used to do stitch Fix, and then I kind of got done with stitch Fix. I felt like they were not as you know, good quality, as what I wanted. Even if I put it on their highest price point, it just wasn't really stuff I was wearing anymore. I like some of their stuff. It was okay, but so so that I tried Nordstrom trunk and I've been mostly happy with that because it's Nordstrom stuff, which is where I would shop anyway. And then I've also tried recently in in Lafleur. I think that's how you would say, Oh, I've heard ads from that, and I've been how is it? What are the quotes? It's it's a lot of classic stuff. The straight leg pants, there's shift dresses like long cardigans. Uh, you know, are they brand name or is their own own? So it's a private label, but I think it's well designed kind of classic stuff, And in fact, I sent around a link in my Twitter feed. Recently they had an article on their blog that one of their staffers actually legitimately wore five items from them every day for November, so like twenty work days. She managed to combine five items plus accessories so like scarves and stuff like that. But still it's a lot of that kind of classic capsule wardrobe stuff, which for whatever reason, I mean, will talk about this in our main set. It seems to be like the holy grail of dressing, Like can I turn a couple items into a wardrobe that seems varied? You know? And so I feel like their stuff can actually do that. That's awesome. I would say the real victory pieces that I've gotten from Trunk Club are those kind like a pair of black skinny jeans, which I think you might have gotten as well. That ended up being a staple of my work wardrobe because it turns out if you wear a shirt long enough, no one can tell that their genes and super comfy and very and my two the speaking things I wear all the time are both Nordstrom Trunk things. I was sent a pair of black Theory pants dressy pants and then a blue Saint John top. It's like a shell top. So yeah, if you if you google my ted talk, that's what I'm wearing in that. And then you know the bone stilettos from Jimmy Choo's, which is just my own selection, but you know, my power dressing gotta gotta do the good stuff for that. So yeah, I mean, I've I've had to convince myself to buy fewer pricier things. I have definitely leaned in that direction as well. I used to be a big sale person and now I have to actually force myself to just not even look at the sail section because I found over time that the things that I keep tend to be the things that I picked based on their own merits, not even looking at the price tag at all. Well, I'm super excited for our guests because I am in this really great crossroads point of needing to refresh my wardrobe, and I've been intrigued by her methods for a while now. Well, we are very excited to welcome to the program today Courtney Carver. She is the author of Soulful Simplicity. She also runs the website be More with Less, and we're especially excited to talk with her today about a project she did called Project three three three, which Courtney, can you tell us a little bit about that? First, Thank you, Thank you for coming, Thank you for inviting me. Project three thirty three is something that is very near and dear to my heart. It is a minimalist fashion challenge that I created in twenty ten as a personal experiment because my closet was so out of control. I mean out of control. I feel like I was just shopping, shopping, shopping my whole life and never letting go of anything. And I had been simplifying the rest of my life for a few years, but really had back burnered the closet and just decided that enough was enough and wanted to see what it would be like to dress with less. And I knew that I needed some rules and accountability, and so I created this challenge where I would dress with thirty three items or less for three months, including clothing, jewelry, accessories, and shoes. There were some things I didn't include, like underwear, sleep wear, and workout gear workout clothes, but I also decided that my workout clothes had to work out. And the reason I included that is because I loved wearing my yoga pants to everything but yoga, and I thought, what I thought, maybe if I if I just assigned those to yoga, I'll actually go to yoga more. So those were kind of the rules. And I picked my thirty three items and boxed everything up and just got it out of sight, so that for three months, all I would be faced with every morning were these this small number of choices, And how did that change your life? So many different ways? I mean, for starters, it's been now more than seven years and I still dressed with about thirty three items or less every three months, and it really resonated with people. So I announced it on my blog back in twenty ten, and I think there were one hundred people that commented on that first post and said, I'm in I want to try this now. I'm sure there were thousands that were like, she is crazy, forget it, I'm not doing this. But as of today, tens of thousands of people have tried it from all over the world. And so I'm learning that the things I experienced, like easier mornings, saving money, less decision fatigue, were things that other people noticed as well. But then there were some all some really bigger shifts, more meaningful things like people would experience less anxiety during the day, which I thought was fascinating, even relief from depression, which you wouldn't think that would come back to your clothes or your stuff, but gosh, we're overwhelmed with all of the decisions we have to make and all of the excess, and so that adds some lightness and some relief to people's lives, and it certainly did for mine. Yeah, I mean, how what mistakes are a lot of women making with their wardrobes that do add this kind of stress to their lives that you think Project three point thirty three was getting well if there are anything like I was, then they are buying clothes not because they need new clothes, but because of other reasons. They're shopping for events. I know I shopped like I thought I needed something new for every new event. Perhaps they're shopping to relieve the pain of boredom or working a job they don't enjoy. You know, for me, that was a story I told myself often. You know, I work so hard, I deserve new things, and I would go blow half a paycheck on clothes that I would never wear. I mean, there were clothes in my closet with tags still hanging. So I think we convince ourselves that we need new clothes in our closet when we really don't. And if you look at what you're wearing now, even if you have a closet stuffed full of clothes, chances are you're only wearing your favorite things every day anyway, but you're feeling bad about not wearing the other things. Like it's mental clutter that's there, and you don't even realize how overwhelming it is until it's gone. So for me, it was, you know, every single day, facing those bad purchase decisions over spending clothes that didn't fit me. Gifts that people gave me that I never wore. I felt bad about that, but because I thought every day I just it was just the norm. I got used to it. But when it was gone, Wow, what a relief. Did it end up causing you to eventually give away some of the things you stored away, or is it more like you still have this repository of stuff, like logistically, what do you do with the stuff? So after every three months, I would go back to the stuff, and the first season it was boxes and boxes and decades of things that I had boxed up. And having that separation really changed the way I felt about those clothes and the things, and it was easier to let go. And so after every three months I would let go of a little bit more. And now I think it took me probably two or three years of that seasonal, you know, revisiting, to let go of almost all of it. And so now I really have just what I need during the three months, and then a small box of other seasonal items that I rotate in. So it's like her trial separation. I mean, once you've been away from it for you can part amicably for the rest of your life. Well, I mean, so let's dive into particulars here, because I'm sure everyone is very curious you know what pieces you wound up selecting for your thirty three, Like what wound up being really versatile in your life, and if there was anything that you found was kind of your your secret weapon, like you're surprisingly useful item that you kept rewearing a lot in that time when you were relying on just thirty. It's changed over time because my career has changed, my life has changed, and because I was pared down to so such a small selection, I was able to really figure out what I wanted and needed in my wardrobe. And I realized that that really looks different for everyone, and it changes for people as well over time. But for me today where I work for myself and really know what clothes I enjoy after all this time, I mean, I keep a pair of jeans, a pair of leggings, and a skirt and a dress in almost every collection, so not three pair of jeans, just one I find that works the best for me, and then the rest of it. Those are kind of the bottoms and the dress of course I can use in different ways, but then the rest of it, depending on the season is a combination of accessories like sunglasses, a tote bag, a purse, and then tops and outer wear, so sweaters, shirts, and thinking about what's the perfect piece. That just got me into trouble to begin with, thinking that there was this perfect item that would complete my wardrobe or be the best thing for me. And so what I've discovered is that there really isn't something, for instance, that I could say, Okay, everybody should have two pair of pants, five sweaters, three scarves, because we're so unique and different. So it really is a matter of experimenting and being curious and knowing that it doesn't have to be permanent, So try it for a few months and see for yourself what really works for you. Yeah. Well with that though, I mean, I think a lot of women want the rules because they're confused and you know, we don't know what necessarily our style is or what looks the best. How should a woman go about figuring that out? I mean, what is the kind of questions you ask yourself the experimental process, What should we do to figure out what those pieces are the work? I mean, really, just taking those three months of only choosing from a small selection will give you a lot of information and the way that I put that first list together, and it was kind of a mess. I'll be honest, it wasn't my best collection, but I really wanted to shop from my closet, use pieces that I already had. So it takes forgetting about the rules. Don't think about what the magazine say, what anyone else tells you you're supposed to be wearing or doing. Pick the items that you think you will need and want in your wardrobe. And what you think you need and want in your wardrobe will change after those three months, but it's the best way to start. So I make a list by category of the clothes. And when I started this, I was working full time for a magazine in ad sales, constantly meeting with clients and colleagues and going to events. So I knew that I would need something that was appropriate to wear to the office and outside of work. And so what I had to do is dress down my work clothes about ten percent and dress up my out of work clothes about ten percent so that there could be a little more crossover. And that's how I started. I really didn't have this set of fashion guidelines to go buy, but in most cases. What I discovered is that one was more than enough, which was shocking to me that I only needed one purse, one dress, one scarf, one pair of jeans. I probably had a couple of pair of slacks or skirts in the beginning. I'd have to go back and look at that list. But because I was dressing up more and no one noticed, no one noticed for a solid year that I was still working that job and dressing like this. I'm curious what you discovered on like as you did a few more of these wardrobes. Did you notice that the colors were all in a certain family, or that you lean toward neutrals or toward a certain bright color, or anything like that, Or perhaps was there a seasonality to it, like you know during warmer months choosing a different palette, or does it tend to be more it's changed from the beginning. In the beginning, I had all the colors, all the patterns, all the things, all of them. And I have pared that down to today where most of my clothes are very neutral. So I wear a lot of grays and blacks and cream or white. Not because I don't like color in my life. I love it. In fact, my life has become so much more colorful as a result, now that I'm not totally focused on making sure that my wardrobe is colorful and creative. But there are also really good examples of colorful capsule wardrobes out there, which I think is fantastic. And that's kind of what I mean by it differs for everyone, So it really depends on what you like, but also give yourself a chance to not know what you like or think that that might be possible. Where we're thrown so many messages about what we're supposed to be wearing, maybe we don't really know what we like until we're just working with a few things. And yes, seasonally it changes as well, but for me, not so much in terms of color anymore. Out of curiosity, what color is the one purse? So I have a black toe bag and a kind of a blush pink purse, so there's some color, Yeah, a little color. And you do like do you like scarves or bright colored accessories or belzers? I mean, I'm just curious where you said the you have a lot of color in your life but not on the ssard. Yeah, it's not. It's not in my accessories either. I have a black scarf, and I have tried other colored scarves and plaid scarves, but I just never wear them. I always gravitate towards that one, warm, comfy black scarf because it's more versatile and just easier, I think. Uh So the color in my life comes from, for instance, when I am traveling and seeing new places, I'm not shopping. I'm not on a shopping excursion. I'm not looking for new things. I'm not thinking about what I'm missing in my wardrobe. Instead, I'm visiting new restaurants and museums and people and you know, really thinking about what I am curious about. And it's not fashion for me. So one of the things I think people might be concerned about with with having, you know, one pair of pants, one skirt something like that, is the whole cleaning process. Are there any tips you have for kind of streetlining that, I mean, are you going to wind up spending more on dry cleaning when you are reusing the same pieces or should you just avoid that dry cleaning issue entirely? How did you wind up working that, especially when you have the in the office. I did have dress, I don't I didn't feel like I was doing any more laundry or dry cleaning than I normally would. Now I think I have one piece that requires dry cleaning and everything else I can wash myself. I do find that I take better care when I when I wash my clothes now, so I wash everything on cold, for instance, and line dry whenever possible, because I think it helps the clothes last longer. But I'm also probably investing a little more on the clothes that I have. So where before, if I found a shirt that I liked and it was only twenty dollars, I would buy five of them in different colors and then still only wear the black one. But I would that was my mentality, like, oh, if one is great, then five would be amazing. So now I might spend a little more than that, but take better care of the item along the way. It's interesting when this idea of experimenting and trying this challenge dressing with less comes up, there are a certain amount of objections that immediately come up. One is laundry. The other is temperature. You know, am I going to be comfortable with the different temperatures that I'm experienced over three months? And so many of these things are just a non issue once you get started and see for yourself. Yeah, that makes sense, And I can imagine how your approach makes the clothing feel less disposable because you really only have a limited array, so you're going to treat it with care or else your one pair of genes is going to be And when you're talking about the dry cleaning or the laundry, I think one of the fears is like, what if I spill something on myself? But and I do. I mean, I'm pretty happy if I make it through the day without spilling something on myself. But really, like, if I spill something on myself, chances are I'm not right by my closet to change it out anyway, Like I'm out in the day, So I'm going to have to deal with it one way or the other. And it's not going to be switching outfits. No, that makes sense. Do you find yourself tailoring more things to kind of make sure that the fit of the pieces you have, Because if you've sort of invested more both liter and figuratively into your item because it's you've chosen it for your capsule, you're more likely to have it altered appropriately. Because that is a barrier for me, I'll buy stuff and I'm only five to one, and then I'll be like, oh, I'm gonna hem that I don't. But I'm not opposed to it. I definitely would if I needed to, and I highly recommend it. I think that's a great idea. Yeah, I would definitely tailor clothes. I feel like I'd be more likely to follow it through if I knew I only had this limited array, then I would want them to fit appropriately somehow. Yeah. Plus it seems less daunting to maybe hem two things versus yeah, seventy I don't have seventy things. But in theory, so you know Sarah and I. Sarah's really into the decluttering stuff. Corney, you're familiar with Marie Condo right here, and do you have any like a fan, but I mean, do you have any thoughts on on her methods and when it comes to clothing and a wardrobe. I'm really just thinking about her in terms of her recommendation to hold things in your hand and ask if they bring you joy. That's kind of her method that I'm thinking about. So I'm not too familiar with all the clothing recommendations. Yeah, we don't need to talk about the rolling socks that's an intelle what I think about specific recommendations because I have them, she has them. Everybody has a great idea, but I don't think any of these ideas are perfect solutions. I think we all have to figure out what works best for us and know that that is going to change over time. So what's best for us today might be different in a month. So right now, if hiding your things and getting them out of sight and breaking that emotional connection works better for you than driving everything to the donation center, do it that way. If decluttering one item a day is less stressful for your entire family than filling boxes all weekend, try it like that. We have to figure out what works best for our lifestyle, because if we're making changes that we don't believe in that add more stress to our life or make us unhappy, we're not going to stick with it, and we're just going to be trying to make the changes over and over again. Well, I can definitely see how you could easily incorporate elements of both and come up with a great hybrid system. Perhaps you have more than thirty three things that spark joy, but it's distracting to you, so you do project three three three without disposing of everything. But if something doesn't spark joy, then it probably doesn't even belong in the backup box, you know what I mean. So I could see a happy marriage between between the two. That's that's mine. I think it's generally about just trying to have you know, fewer things that you're choosing from in the morning. And I know I've talked to people consciously, I mean, without doing a project or anything like that, but you say, like, I've got, you know, let's say, eleven kind of set work outfits, and maybe I've even worked with a stylist to help you come up with these eleven work outfits that you know work, because there's many of us who have no concept really of style whatsoever. And so it's like about you know, asking people like does this song you know, people compliment me on this color, so probably I should wear this color more often or something like that, and then you know, have those outfits and go through them again and again and take that decision making out so that you can and as Courtney was saying, preserve your mind for other things that the color in our life is in other things that are not necessarily fast. I think there's a lot of your mind, mindless decisions that we're making every day, whether it be about food or fashion or whatever, before we ever leave the house. I mean, the cereal aisle at the grocery store is completely overwhelming to me. I mean, why do we have so many choices? I think there's like fifteen different kinds of cheerios available now. But we get all consumed in these tiny details that don't really matter in our lives, and then we are too worn out when it comes to making the big decisions. Yeah, and I think that's really something that it's a part of women's professional advance that that it's not necessarily talked about as much that I mean, for one thing, if it takes you longer to get ready in the morning, then that's time you're not doing something else, whether it's sort of collecting your thoughts for the day, or you know, getting into work a little bit earlier, or having more quality time with your family. Those are all other things you could be doing other than getting dressed, and those might be better things to do with one's time in terms of one's long life goals. But then also even just the cognitive stress of trying to figure out like is this the right thing to wear? Does this look good on me? Does it not? And if you only have things that you know work for you and that you I love with Courtney that you've like taken this, You've invested maybe half a day or however long into choosing that thirty three so it's like you've done the pre work of doing it so that you don't have to think about it it for three months. I think as I head back to work that that could be especially as you just mentioned, like does that fit? Does that work? Like I could just pick thirty three things that work on my body right now that would work, and then I don't have to look at anything else for that period of time. I feel like that's that's so freeing. And you're right, it actually does pay dividends time wise, which is really important. And let's talk about this here what Sarah just said that works with her right now because her body right now is not necessarily what her body is going to be in a year, right like she just or even in three months, right, So yeah, thank you. Let's she looks awesome, by the way, but you know things are changing, right and so it's I think one of the things that you've probably encountered with women in their wardrobes is we're holding on to clothes that may have worked at a different season in our lives that we are not currently in. And I wonder if you could talk about that in terms of how we feel about our bodies and how we've about weight in particular, and if that's something that's comeing. Yes, that is one of the top objections. As I mentioned before, so laundry, weather, and weight, especially weight fluctuations, whether it be for a pregnancy or whatever, because your body changes all the time. One thing I noticed that doesn't apply to every situation, but one thing that I definitely noticed and have heard from other people is that once you narrow that down to your thirty three and you've eliminated some stress in your life, and you start to notice that there aren't as many weight fluctuations. I have really noticed that in my own life, where I've been wearing the same size for a long time now, and that's unusual for me. So I think a lot of that holding on to things that whether it be sizes that don't fit us, things that don't fit our lifestyle, things that don't fit our bodies. That's extremely stressful, and we all know are there's a correlation between stress and weight gain. Now I'm not saying this is the magic pill and that it solves all of those problems, but it contributes, it helps, And thirty three might not be the right number for you. It might be forty or twenty five. There's no magic to this thirty three. It just happens to be the right number for me. I wonder what my number would be like, already creating a mental list. But I get your point, the fact that you have this finite collection and that you've sort of decided in Ada, and just that we're saying we deserve to dress for our bodies and our lifestyles today, and if that changes in six months or three months or three weeks, so be it. We'll figure it out. But today, what fits us? What do we enjoy wearing? What adds value to our life by wearing it? Instead of oh my gosh, I have to try to fit into those high school genes, or I just spent so much money on this item and now it doesn't fit me. That's stressful. I would also imagine that twelve weeks goes faster than one might think. You think oh, I'm gonna, you know, undergo these enormous changes in twelve weeks. But if you really think about the last year, I mean, well, okay, my last year maybe an exception begun having a baby, but other years, you know, you're not going to have dramatic changes in that kind of a time window. So that's a good agreed. And if you then maybe there are some other things to address that are more important than clothes as well. So I love that we were talking about. I used to watch What Not to Wear a lot, like when I was on the treadmill Heavy to Wear. I'm proud of my favorite lines I've always had. You know, people would like have some you know, hideous pair of jeans from the nineteen eighties that they could wear in high school and be like, well, I might lose weight and then I could wear this, and and Stacy said, why would you lose weight just to wear ugly clothes? That is that is a brilliant point, like why would on earth like if you did lose weight, like you'd want stuff that was fresh and modern anyway, like probably not this hideous pair of jeans exactly. And I think for any of us that have tried to lose weight before we know that losing weight to fit into something or to attend an event, or for any other superficial reason is not sustainable. It just doesn't last. Yeah, exactly one other thing from What Not to Wear, because Sarah and I were talking about this in terms of their sticking this show, they would always give the women five thousand dollars to purchase a new wardrobe. And I wonder what you thought about that as a price point for like a workable wardrobe for a professional woman. I mean, what would you imagine would be the right if someone was starting from starting, like if someone literally had like yeah, I mean, I guess it's a pretty unique situation. Lot of money to spend it on a wardrobe. And one way you might figure that out for yourself is just going through right now and assigning a dollar value, Like what have you spent on the clothes in your closet right now? I've got a lot of people have spent more than five thousand dollars, but that's probably well volume it is, right, Like if you've got six persons, you've got eight pairs of jeans. I mean, you know this stuff does add up. It may not have, but probably the stuff that someone actually is wearing. Yeah, and here's the conteresting thing when it comes to cost I was talking with somebody about this recently who was looking for a new dress, and she said, I can never find like just a simple black dress that I really like. And she had tried one on and I think it was maybe two hundred and fifty or three hundred dollars, and she said, I would never spend that on a dress, never ever. And I asked her what she had spent on black dresses in the last year, and it far surpassed that number. So if you whatever your price point is, if it's fifty, it's one hundred, it's five hundred, how much have you spent on trying to find that perfect item instead of just spending a little bit more for an item that really works for you. I would also caution people to be careful with the whole sale mentality. I know Sarah and I have been trying to not not look at the tag, right, Like, if it's something that works for you, you can decide that it works for you, and then I mean, look at the tag and obviously if it's completely outrageous, you probably won't by it. But be less influenced by that in the decision. They say like, Oh, I don't like it, but it's on sale. I mean, that's a very silly approaching. Yeah so, I don't know who it was, but somebody recently either said or tweeted if the price point is the most appealing thing about something, it's not worth it for you it's too expensive, then right there if it no matter what the is on it. So this has been great Courtney, a lot of great advice for people in terms of how they dress and figuring out uh wardrobe that works for them. We always have our guests end with a love of the week. So Sarah and I were both going to do clothing related things, but you don't have to. The rules are it could be anything that you like or don't. But Sarah, Sarah, what are you really liking this week? Yeah? So my love of the week is sort of a generic clothing item, and that is the rap dress, because you know, after having a baby, you're looking for forgiving silhouettes. I definitely feel like I, you know, I'm not in my typical shape, but somehow when you put on the rap dress, it emphasizes the best parts of what's there in some magical way, and they are going to be my go to outfit as I return to work. I've never had like a super fancy Diane von Furstenberg. I know that's sort of where they arose from. But I found some great ones at Bodin from design History is like a small label, and then my my nanny got me one. I think it like TJ Max and that's the one I wore to a bridle shower and I got tons of compliments on it. And I don't even know what the label is, but it's awesome. So rap dresses for the wind and then mine is straight leg pants. So I've been somewhat frustrated in that for the past whatever decade now, skinny jeans and skinny pants have been kind of dominating all the pant options that are out there, and for whatever reason, I don't really like the way it looks on me. And as Courtey was talking about, we have to know what works for us, and I am not of the opinion that the skinny leg works on me. And so I finally got around to just you know, after being sent stuff with Nordstrom trunk that I wasn't wearing because it's you know, skinny leg pants. I was like, I would like straight leg and they're like, okay, we will send you straight leg stuff, and they have and I've kept several pairs and I've been wearing them and so it's great. It's just I mean, I like that settes. So knowing what works for you is probably the way to go. So Courtney right now clothing related that might not be a surprise that is traveling right now for the next couple of months off and on. And there is a website that I signed up for this summer called do You Yoga, So it's douyoga dot com and they offer both the free and paid membership, but they have just a crazy amount of different types of yoga classes and lessons, and so every day when I'm traveling, I can get in a ten or fifteen minute practice in the morning without having to think about what I'm going to do because I'm not always that great in creating my own flow and I can't always find a studio with the way my schedule's been, So it's awesome. All I need to do is find a towel or a yoga mat, and I can practice with some guidance video and audio, so we should check out very cool. Do you like you? Do you like that kind of way? Okay? Do you yoga? Well we will check that out well, Courtney, thank you so much for coming on. This has been Courtney Carver has been on. Please check out her new book, Soulful Simplicity and visit her website be More with Less and you can try the project do you say three three? Sorry? Really matter? Three thirty three? Okay to see if you can create your own capsule wardrobe that works for you. Thank Courtney, thank you so much for being on. Thank you. Our Q and A today revisits a question that is definitely one of our main themes on this podcast, childcare. Katie wrote in Hi, Sarah, I've been listening to yours and Laura's new podcast and really enjoying it. I have a baby who is about to be six months old, and I'm ready to look for a babysitter so i can get out and do some things once in a while. Do you have recommendations on how to find a qualified sitter websites to use questions to ask, et cetera. I am most impressed in this question. It's taking Katie. Six months, Katie, Katie, if you got out, Katie, get out more than time. I really hope maybe extended family nearby that's been watching her kid, right like, I am going to hope. I am going to hope because both Laura and I we talked about it usually by five six weeks, I think she said something like six days six days going through, we have needed to get some kind of backup or childcare because at some point you do go stir crazy. I mean, I will say I've been pretty stuck to Genevieve thus far. She's now a month old. But right now I'm doing this podcast while our nanny is watching her, and that is a nice break for me. And I'm looking forward to our first real date night in a couple of weeks when we're going to go to a Miami Heat game. Yeah, and I'm really excited about it. And those those little johnts out, even if they're not that frequent, are kind of part, at least for me, of sort of getting back to feeling normal and like myself. So, Katie, I highly highly highly endorsed finding a sitter. One thing I will say is that your baby will never remember it. But it will mean a lot to you, Yes, exactly, So what are yeah? I mean the logistics references from other people are obviously a great way to go because it's somebody that your friends have already used and liked. And often there are people. I mean, you don't want to poach a sitter from another family, that's not cool. But in many cases, people can only use their sitters at certain times, like, for instance, their kids are in school, so they're only using them on evenings or weekends. And maybe that sitter is actually looking to add some hours during the day, so if you're looking for during the day, that would be a great addition to to what she already has going on. Or else you know, they use somebody as a secondary sitter and can't give them as many hours as they want. So that's another great option for you to get in on that because often people do want to make sure that their their sitters are getting, you know, the kind of hours that they'd like, so you know, ask around, just like you know, post on moms groups, you know. Or it could even be that a family is sort of aging out of needing a center and they're hoping to find a new situation for them so there's all kinds of people who might be doing that, or it could be you know, someone you know, maybe a family's got an older teenager who's at home, maybe between high school and college or after college or whatever. I'm looking for something to do, So people you know is the first place to go, obviously, because then those people are already vetted. They've got people around you who are they're accountable to, So that's you know, the first layer for trusting. Of course, we've also had good luck with going through services. I mean, I've used nanny agencies when I was looking for somebody who's full time that wouldn't be cost effective really for part time. But I've also posted on sitter City care dot com and had really great luck with both of those. I mean, you found your nanny through care dot com, right, Yes, we did find our through care dot com. I'm also going to throw out two additional points. Number one, if you know of anybody moving, that should be the first thing you think of, ooh, because then you're not poaching exactly. You mean, so they've got like sitters that are probably losing their business, so aging out and or moving, because that's one of our best babysitters. Sort of. Our date night sitter was the nanny across the street until they moved, so we didn't poach, but we embraced the opportunity to opportunity to see the baby. Yeah, thing is next door if you have a next door is sort of like the Facebook for your neighborhood, and a lot of times that's a great place to post that you're looking for a sitter because people who are aging out, are ready to move on, will be happy to pass on their nanny or babysitters information to you. And I've found that is probably more likely gonna get you something than say Facebook, unless your neighborhood, I guess has a very specific page. I'd ask for questions to ask. Unfortunately, I don't really think there's a great answer to this because I mean, it's what you really want to know. It's like can I try you with my kid? And I mean, how do you even? That's not really straightforward question to ask. So I mean generally you ask people about their background sort of, you know, if they've dealt with any crisis situations, you know, ask for references, of course, and call the references. If there's people you know, then you're looking for the people you know, raving about them. That's that's always, of course the key thing. But you know, doing one to two supervised sessions. We've talked about this in the past on the podcast, but just you know, paying the person to come sit while you're home for an hour or two so you can try them out and see if that works and if you're happy with them, if it's a good match, and then you can sort of go from there to having a time when you go run a small errand and you know, move on from that point. And it's so worth it investing that time because once you have a few in your armistice, it's very freeing to know that if you get an invitation to a party, you're not scrambling. You have you know, your three or four go to options that you have. It's really it really is. Yeah. I like think of this as a sort a sitter portfolio for you know, there are people who can only do weekends, or people who can do during the day, or people who can do on short notice, or people who can do eatings, and you need less of this if you wind up with again, you know, one full time person, because mostly that person might be but you'll still need some because you'll never know. You never know, and there are hours that person might not be willing to work, and so having a portfolio is great. And then we got a great listener tip from Erica. Right. Yes, Erica is a blog reader, and when she wrote this tip down, I said, oh, we have to share this in the podcast because this isn't something I have done, but it's so up my alley and I love it. So I'm just going to read the comment she said. I thought you were going to address the process of onboarding, said babysitter, So she's going to address that. Once we find someone new, I give them a detailed day in the life typical schedule I updated every six months or so, and a packet of information about routines, what our kids typically eat, house rules, bedtime routines, et cetera. They don't have to read it, but it's there for rough. It removes any confusion about what the kids expect and also contains important info like emergency contacts, as well as useful tidbits like the Wi Fi password. I love that. I love the fact that you only have to do it once and update it every once in a while. I love that it's clear and that it sort of takes away some ambiguity. So if the babysitter isn't going to be able to say, oh, I thought, because it's like, well, it's on the page, not that you want them like reading it while they're supposed to be watching your kids. I mean, this is but they have something they want to reference exactly. I forget which kid is allergic to. That's pretty that's a pretty important thing. Yeah, you know, even mention that, yes, you're right, that probably should be even not just buried in the document somewhere, but you get my point. I love that idea. I'm going to copy it, and yeah, I just help. If you, you know, have extended family visiting and they're watching, you know that you have this all written down. And I know that when I've been gone for longer periods of time, I've written out whole schedule things and obviously schedules and all that, but it's the document that everyone can refer to. And then, you know, because a lot of that stuff is just in my head and that's not helpful for anyone, but it's only in my head, and it's so tempting to be like, oh, I'm just a text away, but it's probably better to see if there's a way you can avoid having to get those texts in the first place. And it's probably more pleasant for the caregiver as well to just have something to refer to rather than wondering whether they have to contact you intermittently. Yeah, although you know to some degree it's you also just want to be able to relax about it some And I would say because this is something that maybe some new parents sometimes struggle with a little bit, I mean less so because I just don't even think about what could go wrong. It's probably a personality fall on my part that way. But you know, when you're not there, some things are not going to happen exactly as you would do them. But that's okay. Like kids can deal with totally agreetions, and you know, if something happens a little different, you know, if the TV came on at a different time, or Toya was played with that's not normally played with at that time, or dinner wasn't done in precisely the way, you know, the kids are probably going to be fine. So if there's something actually very important again, like the allergy that needs to be more explicitly communicated and strict rules about that. But for most stuff, you know it will be okay. That is very true. Wise words from a mom who has done this a number of times. Well, this has been Best of Both Worlds Episode twenty four. Tune in next week for more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of Both Worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together. The Boy a Boy